


Transformations

by Serriya (Keolah)



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Dragons, Gen, Gnomes, Humor, Magic, Original Universe, Transformation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1996-07-19
Updated: 1996-07-19
Packaged: 2017-11-14 04:14:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/511189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keolah/pseuds/Serriya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Apprentice wizard Nitsa seeks a cure for her transformed young cousin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Transformations

"You know, Trennon, I think I liked you better before you turned into a yeti."

The ape who was once a man did not bother to reply. Instead, he squeezed his gray-furred body out the narrow doorway and waited for Nitsa to emerge. The apprentice mage appeared no worse for wear, though she was nearly as covered in long gray fur as Trennon was.

"Remind me never to ride in anything built by gnomes ever again."

Trennon did not bother saying that they should never have done so in the first place.

The gnome who was driving the Mark Dragon--so the elves called it, because of it's brassy color--shouted something rapidly for several minutes, hardly pausing for breath. Though it was in elvish, Nitsa only caught "thank you" and "please ride again." Which, she thought wryly, she would make sure never to do.

As Nitsa and Trennon steadied themselves against the blue-painted railings, the Mark Dragon let out a deafening whistle, who's purpose neither cared to guess. "Let's get out of here," the woman suggested. Trennon didn't need to be told. As quickly as they could, they exited the Wyrm Station--another elvish appellation --and ran off into the countryside.

The Wyrm Station, as well as the Dragon's Road that carried the accursed contraption, was built out well away from any city. It really defeated the purpose, but the gnomes figured that if someone wanted to make the journey to one of the Wyrm Stations, they really wanted to go someplace. Besides, other gnomish devices provided access to the stations, which the two wayfarers avoided at all cost.

"We could have as easily walked," muttered Nitsa. "Or ridden horses. I'm sure we could have located a pair of nice, docile ponies to ride..."

Trennon ignored the human as she carried on nearly as badly as a gnome. His present interest was in the squirrels around the footpath. Ever since his little transformation, Trennon had had rather unusual appetites. But Nitsa had tried to teach him to behave.

"Those scatterbrained gnomes will be the end of me one day. If it isn't their contraptions it's their--" Suddenly, the apprentice mage heard a squeak from behind her, then a crunch. Forcing herself not to gag, she resisted looking back and kept on the path.

When the munching behind her ceased, she said, with all the blandness she could muster, "Trennon. As soon as we get to the City of Gal, I am going to get Fintlent to turn you back into whatever you were before."

A resounding belch answered her.

Nitsa gave a mental sigh of frustration and quickened her pace, hoping fervently that Trennon didn't get hungry by the time they reached the City. If he started considering her as food... Nitsa quickened her pace considerably, almost wishing she had taken the gnomish bus.

An earsplitting crash pierced the chill autumn air. Almost. As the two travellers raced into the City, they saw sparks flying everywhere, several strange machines, and frantic gnomes and elves.

A pair of wizards finally put out the fire and used a localized calming spell, directed at the area of the collision. Trennon, who was already as unperturbably calm as one could get, instantly fell asleep. The others merely fell into various levels of agitation. Nitsa just remained at complete panic. Of course, spells didn't work as well on her as they did on certain people, which was why she was learning magic.

"What happened?" she said as soon as she was close enough to be heard above the commotion.

The wizard wearing red, who happened to be a gnome, said, "The Swift Silver Dragonbus which serves the west area of the city to the Wyrm Train Station crashed into the Rapid Racing Red Dragonbus which serves the east area of the city to the west, though they run on the same spark-lines but I have never seen them have any problems before, so the engineer-designers should really fix this problem before someone gets hurt, although no one did in this incident because the dragonbusses were empty and--"

His pratter was cut short by a shrill whistle. By then the calming spell had thoroughly worn off and the citizens again panicked. The elven wizard shouted in a magic-amplified voice, "Clear the area! We'll clean this up!"

As it turned out, the elf was Fintlent, and he was not happy in the least at this "incident."

"I knew there would be problems," he stated ruefully. "Trust a gnomish contraption to have glitches."

"What went wrong?" asked Nitsa, her curiosity having gotten the better of her.

The gnome wizard replied, "The Dragonbus Guiding System which alerts the operators to imminent collision and switches the dragonbusses to separate spark-lines malfunctioned so that the busses were switched to the same lines instead of different ones, which indicates that reworking of the guidance systems needs to be done in order to--"

"I see," interrupted Nitsa. "But I don't see what's wrong with horses."

The gnome made a face. "Live animals are an inneficient source of power, in that they require large quantities of sustenance in order to operate at peak effifiency, and even then they have untoward tendancies to dis--"

"Look at the time," said Nitsa, knowing from much experience how much gnomes liked the sound of their own voices and enjoyed gesturing have of what they were saying, which was too much. The apprentice looked at the tower clock--another gnomish invention. "It's already noon."

"Yes," noted Fintlent. "Sorry we must be going, Gadderding, but my apprentice and I have business to attend to. I'm sure you can handle the wreckage on your own."

Before Gadderding could draw in breath for another speech, Fintlent, Nitsa, and Trennon were halfway down the winding street.

When they reached Fintlent's workshop, Nitsa, shaking, fell into a chair and sighed, "Gnomes!"

The chair, responding to her heat and weight, shifted itself to make her more comfortable, and, sensing her stress, started massaging her back. In her present mental condition, she needed it.

"They're harmless," Fintlent shrugged. "Usually."

Nitsa sighed heavily and shut her eyes, letting the chair comfort her. "Is there anything you can do for Trennon?"

"I've been considering that," Fintlent replied. "What exactly happened to him?"

His apprentice stirred and opened her eyes. "We were down at Bamank, looking for enkeyda. We couldn't find any anywhere. So we went to this huge park, Nar Nerb’a, Center Garden. Its entire name was inscribed on a plaque, about this big, in very small print. Those were the first two words."

"I think I know the place you mean," commented the wizard. "Go on."

Nitsa couldn't help the psychiatrist feeling, but she continued. "We found this huge lern tree there, and Trennon spotted a bird's nest made with enkeyda. He then volunteered to climb up and get it, since I haven't learned the levitation spell yet."

"Which you should," muttered Fintlent.

"So he shinnied up that lern tree, and was nearly to the nest when this mage appeared out of the foliage and said something to the effect of 'You could climb better if you were an ape!' Then he waved hands and said something thoroughly unintelligible. You can guess the rest."

The elf was scribbling down something, which made Nitsa nervous. "I see. Hmm. Uh-huh."

He does this to irritate me, thought Nitsa.

"But you got the nest," pressed Fintlent.

The apprentice grunted. "Sure, we got it. Turned out it was not enkeyda, but growweed, and Trennon soon had longer hair and was a full foot taller."

The wizard made a sound. Then he stood and said, "I am not an expert in transformations, but I'll see what I can do about restoration."

He strode over to his shelves of ingredients. Nitsa went over to help him. He handed her a heavy book and asked her to find the spell. As she flipped though pages of spells, most of which she couldn't begin to comprehend, Fintlent fiddled with a potion he had been working on.

Nitsa muttered to herself the subjects of the spells she could understand. "Desalination, detecting, elephants, frogs, glue, hats, invisibility, jumping, kites, llamas, motion, newts, opening, percolating, quivering, restoration."

Fintlent took the book and began reading. "To restore a being which has been transformed to its original form. Ingredients: brown kabar feather."

The apprentice located the collection of kabar feathers of all colors. "Check."

"Red dragon tongue," continued Fintlent. Nitsa tried to keep herself from gagging.

"Check."

"Purple lizard gizzard." The things they come up with! thought Nitsa.

"Check."

"Two live thaltums." Whatever that might be.

"Check," replied Nitsa over a cage of little caterpillars labeled thaltums.

"A garbled wart mold."

Nitsa hadn't the vaguest idea what a wart mold might be. She didn't see anything labeled that. "Garbled wart mold?" wondered the apprentice.

"I don't know," replied Fintlent easily, anticipating her question. "I have never heard of garbled wart mold. I have heard of garbled slime mold. Perhaps they are related."

There came a sickening crunch from the next room. "Yicky!" shouted Trennon, flinging his would-be meal at Nitsa.

"Oh, yuck!" muttered the human. In her hands she held some sort of egg, filled with talking mold that was covered with warts.

"Glibber gacky nyicka gocker," muttered the garbed wart mold.

At this, Nitsa promptly fainted, fortunately into the chair.

* * *

The apprentice mage woke to small hands shaking her. "Wake up, Aunty Nitsa!"

"More like cousin," murmured Nitsa as she came to. "Who's this?"

"Trennon, Cousin Nitsa!"

"Ulch, I assume Fintlent got you back to what you were," Nitsa opened her eyes, and, seeing about five little Trennons, closed them again. "Unfortunately," she added, though it was little more than a moan.

"Wake up, Cousin Nitsa!" piped little Trennon.

"I'm up, I'm up," she groaned, standing with effort. She forced herself not to think of magic ingredients. "If that's all there is to magic, it's not for me," she muttered.

"Why do you say that?" came Fintlent's voice. Nitsa opened her eyes, to see six Trennons and seven Fintlents.

"Go away," moaned Nitsa, "all thirteen of you."

She felt Trennon's hand on her shoulder, then Fintlent put a cup to her mouth. "Drink this."

Nitsa really did not feel like drinking anything at this time, but she swallowed the bitter substance anyway. Her vision began to clear, and her stomach settled. Suddenly, the thought of garbled wart mold no longer bothered her so much. She refused to think about what Fintlent might have done with it.

Trennon now went across the room and picked up his lute. "Once in the starriest land of the Tavers," he sang.

Nitsa, for one, did not care to hear "The Death of a Dragon" again, so she retreated to her chamber.

Some time later, Fintlent entered. And he had another journey for her, as usual. Sometimes she thought she spent more time looking for Fintlent's ingredients than she did learning magic. Other times she was sure of it.

This time, it turned out, she was going to have to go to Thalarey to find some zephyl's hair and feathers. How she was going to persuade a zephyl to give up his hair and feathers she did not know.

As usual, she would have to take her young third-cousin-not-enough-times-removed with her.

So, in a few days, she set out from the Valley of Gal and headed westward toward Thalarey. She had the distinct feeling that she wasn't going to enjoy this.

As they rounded the mountains south of Gal, they took a break in the forests of Mithim. Quite suddenly, something humanoid-sized thing fell into their camp. As it turned out, it was a dead zephyl. It had silver wings and light brown hair. Nitsa wasn't sure if that meant it was male or female, was she wasn't about to check to find out.

Glad of their good fortune, they collected the fur and feathers from the body and placed then in jars. Then, not wishing to stay out in the wilderness any more than was absolutely necessary, they headed back to the City as quickly as they could.

The cousins arrived back in the City of Gal by midmorning of the next day. The apprentice mage sent Trennon off with a hewdar to buy whatever he wanted. Trennon truly loved it when his cousin was in a good mood.

So Nitsa entered Fintlent's shop alone. As she entered the laboratory, she was about to call out to him, when she heard voices. Terrified illogically, she cast a silent invisibility spell over her, and sought out the voices. Fortunately, the invisibility spell needed only a silver zephyl feather and the toenail of an invisible giant. Luckily she did not have to eat either of those, though she imagined she would look rather silly with then hanging from her neck, that is, if anyone could even see her.

Silent as a mouse, Nitsa crept toward the voices. They were coming from the atrium, she realized.

"...and when that apprentice of mine--what's her name? Nitwit?--well, when she comes back with the zephyl's feathers and fur, then we can cast that spell on you to return you to your true form."

Nitsa was greatly insulted, and knew at once something was wrong. She silently entered the atrium, her treads no louder than the distant hum of traffic on the streets of Gal. Another voice was speaking, and she tuned in to listen to him, even as she approached them without their seeing.

"I am so eager to fly again," said the human man. "And I will again be able to serve the powers of Darkness. I so hate this body, and humans in general. To have wings again."

The apprentice mage--though she refused to be Fintlent's apprentice any longer--crept even closer to the two. The sun spilled in from the skylight high above, as if disapproving of this venture. Then she saw that Fintlent's friend had shining red eyes.

"What do you need to do to make me a dragon again?" asked the human.

"Ah, Bloodbright, how simple that is. My nitwit apprentice alerted me to a restoration formula. All I need is a replacement of zephyl's feathers and fur, because I used my last restoring her nitwit cousin."

Nitsa would have gasped, but she thought better of it. The dragon-turned-human smiled an infernal smile. "When will she be back?"

"Nitwit set out for Thalarey yesterday. Should take a few weeks."

Nitsa, who was far from being a nitwit, had already decided what she would do. She slipped back into the lab, and pilfered every ingredient in restoration that wasn't too disgusting. Then she took the book. Suddenly, Fintlent came in, and she was still at the shelf. She slid out of his way, and started backing to the door. The young woman fervently hoped that Trennon did not come rushing back anytime soon.

"Now where did I put that magic book?" muttered Fintlent absently. Bloodbright stood in the doorway. "Do you have it?" asked Fintlent.

"Not I," replied the dragon in human form.

Nitsa suddenly realized that she couldn't open the door, because they would see it.

"And some of the main ingredients are missing, too." Fintlent looked irritated.

Much to Nitsa's relief, the two left to search the rest of the building, and she quietly opened the door and slipped out. Then she closed it again and ran to the marketplace, before remembering to un-invisible herself.

As soon as he saw his cousin flicker into being, Trennon ran up to her an embraced her. It took some doing to pry the boy off of her while holding the magic book, because all the condiments were in her cloak. She was ready to flee the entire blasted continent.

"You know, Trennon, I think I liked you better before you turned back from a yeti."


End file.
